X Prize Foundation moving headquarters to Playa Vista

The X Prize Foundation, an educational nonprofit prize institute that fosters innovation through competition, is moving its headquarters from Santa Monica to Playa Vista Wednesday, October 1st.

The X Prize Foundation will lease nearly 18,000 square feet in the Water’s Edge office complex at the northeast corner of Jefferson and Lincoln Boulevards. The building where the X Prize Foundation will be based is anchored by the Southern California studio of Electronic Arts, an independent developer and publisher of interactive entertainment and games software.

In selecting Playa Vista as its headquarters, the X Prize Foundation joins two other high-technology companies — Fox Interactive Media and Belkin Inter- national — that recently announced their intention to locate their global headquarters at Playa Vista.

“We’re thrilled to relocate our headquarters to Playa Vista and to join some of this country’s most innovative and creative companies,” said Robert K. Weiss, president of the X Prize Foundation. “We look forward to continuing our growth trajectory from our new home at Playa Vista.”

The X Prize Foundation became known in 2004 when a Burt Rutan-led team backed by Micro soft co-founder Paul Allen built and flew the world’s first private spaceship to win the $10 million Ansari X Prize for suborbital space flight.

Since then, the foundation has launched the $10 million Archon X Prize for Genomics, the $30 million Google Lunar X Prize, and the $10 million Progressive Insurance Automotive X Prize.

The foundation and its partner BT Global Services are creating prizes in exploration of space and oceans, life sciences, energy and environment, education and global development.

Information can be found at www.xprize.org/.

“The X Prize Foundation is joining a great group of companies that have selected Playa Vista as their headquarters, and we couldn’t be happier to welcome them,” said Playa Vista chairman Steve Soboroff. “The X Prize Foundation is a real innovator in the nonprofit sector, just like Playa Vista.

“Our community is an urban model in America. I invite the people of Los Angeles to come take a look and see what attracted the X Prize Foundation and thousands of local residents to choose Playa Vista as their home.”